The list, as its name tells you, is of persons who have suffered various levels of indignity at the hands of PC enforcers. It has been widely noticed, linked to from Reason, the Chateau, Vox Day, and our own Steve Sailer.

The list is a moving target, as HH has declared his intention to add to it as suitable comments come in. At the time of setting finger to keyboard, there are 91 entries—I’ll call them “incidents”—on the list, identifying 92 persons (plus the entire Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints).

If there really was an “Interglacial” spell of openness about un-PC topics around the years 1995-2005, then the rightmost two columns should be in an inverse relationship—more purges and shamings correlating with fewer books published.

The datasets here are too sparse for a dispositive conclusion, but the period 1995-2009 does show purges rising as book numbers dwindle. The “Interglacial” hypothesis is seems to hb holding up.

My next question: Who are they, these purgees and shamees?

Of the 92 individuals identified in HH’s list (not necessarily named: some have pseudonyms) as having been bullied, badgered, pressured, or purged, I tallied the following:

Acting as…

No. of

individuals

Opinion journalist

26

Scholar

19

Entertainer

11

Politician

9

Sportsman

7

Citizen

6

Businessman

4

Educator

3

Clergyman

2

Writer

2

Sport commentator

2

Jurist

1

Total:

92

There are some problems of classification. I have tried to identify each individual by what they were acting as when they committed the offending offense.

It’s plain, and not at all surprising, that opinion journalism (which includes prominent bloggers like Vox Day) is the most dangerous line of work, purge-wise.

But much more shocking, it seems to me, is the second category, way out ahead of the rest of the pack: scholars. And again, I have included there only scholars acting in their capacity as scholars (or editors/administrators at scholarly establishments).

It appears that, if you are in the business of uncovering truths about the world, you had better be careful what you tell the world about the things you find.

There are interesting social dynamics to be uncovered here.

But, being (to Peter Brimelow’s disgust) compulsively fair-minded, I must note that these PC purges and Two Minutes Hates are comparatively civilized. No-one has actually been killed or sent to the Gulag.

(Of course, groveling is always foolish: it only inflames the mob’s bloodlust. Either spit in their fool faces or else maintain a dignified reserve, according to the grain of your own personality; but don’t grovel. Think Duck Dynasty.)

A majority of the 92 victims listed—I make it 62—are still employed as before, or in some equivalent position. Of the rest, several are too old to care. The trend lines are not good, as the first of my tables shows. But there is no cause for despair.Dum spiro, spero.

Arguably, for a society to be stable and coherent, there must be some necessary conditions. I suspect that one of those conditions is that there be a set of dogmas, some of them irrational, the contradiction of which is met with strong social disapproval.

But the trouble is that dogmas have a way of getting out of hand. The consequences of that can be disastrous public policy. Most obviously to VDARE.com readers, the dogmas collected under the heading “PC,” which the persons on HH’s list all got into trouble for violating, lead to the costly foolishness of Open Borders, “Diversity,” No Child Left Behind, “disparate impact,” women in submarines, and all the rest of the insanities.

In the nature of things, only a few citizens, those of a skeptical and cross-grained outlook—the dissident personality—will question established dogmas.

Their consolation: they are performing a vital social function—they are a kind of conscience for their fellow citizens, reminding them of the reality that is always there, however much we might prefer to ignore it, and however much our fellow citizens resist being reminded.

I can remember precisely the event that caused me to end up on HH’s list. I was conducting a transaction in a minor commercial establishment. At the other side of the transaction was a store clerk: a middle-aged working-class white lady with a serious weight problem and, plainly, not much education. I’d guess her IQ to be in the first quartile, or low in the second (i.e. high 80s or low 90s).

This was spring of 2012, with the Trayvon Martin hoax all over the news. The lady chatted with a colleague. “Such a terrible thing!” she was saying. “I know what I’d do to that George Zimmerman if ever I got hold of him!”

Goodness, I thought, she’s swallowed the whole Main Stream Media narrative—hook, line, and sinker! And if SHE has, then so have tens of millions of other citizens.

I felt a mighty urge to put some realistic counter-narrative out there. So I did… and ended up on HH’s list.

The story about old Joe Kennedy is, that on his way to the office one day he stopped for a shoeshine. The shoeshine boy offered him a stock tip. Kennedy realized at that point that speculation fever was out of control. When he got to his office he called his broker and sold out his stock holdings, thereby avoiding ruin in the 1929 crash.

I felt somewhat the same way about my store clerk. If she believes it, then half the country believes it, and someone ought to yell in their ears!

Two plus two equals four; the Emperor has no clothes; eppur si muove. As long as these things can be said and heard, there is hope that the dogmas can remain tethered to the ground, at not too great a height, and be prevented from flying off into the aery blue.